She’d hoped to needle him. Instead, he arched those knowing brows. “Oh, harsh words.”
Betraying color flooded her face. Damn him. He knew she’d attained her peak each time he’d taken her. How could he not? “You don’t know what I hoped for,” she snapped.
“Believe me, pumping my juice into you won’t improve the fuck.”
Her eyes rounded at his coarse language, although she knew she’d asked for it. As perfect as a Greek god from a statuary, he strolled forward to lean against the bedpost. Naked, he should be at a disadvantage, but he unquestionably remained in control.
Helplessly, her attention flickered downward, over the defined musculature of his chest to where his penis jutted from a nest of curling black hair. To her surprise the organ began to swell and stiffen.
If her face became any hotter, she’d go up in flames. Nervously she shifted her focus to the left. A small dark patch on his hip captured her attention. She hadn’t noticed it before. Hardly surprising, considering how overwhelmed she’d been when she saw him unclothed.
Was it a scar? A birthmark? A tattoo?
“I shock you.”
She dragged her gaze from the interesting mark to meet his. A phantom smile hovered around his mouth.
“Yes.” She risked an honest answer. She’d tried to play the sophisticate, but he must know she was hopelessly outclassed in these games. “I’m a complete country mouse. That’s why I’m here. I’m sure I’ll become used to your ways.”
She hoped to heaven he wouldn’t toss her out before she had the chance to become used to him. Back in Marsham, she’d told herself she’d play the perfect lover, biddable, cooperative, responsive. In the throes of passion, it was impossible to hide her real self. How deluded she’d been to imagine she’d keep some distance from the man who took her. The intimacy of sex inevitably meant intimacy of other, unwelcome kinds.
The tension drain
ed from his long body, and his rueful smile made her heart lurch with reluctant warmth. “You’re such a goddess in my arms, I forget your inexperience.”
Astonishment had her recoiling against the carved headboard. The sheet slipped unconsidered from her bare breasts. “You…”
Words deserted her. A goddess? Her? He couldn’t mean it. He was a man practiced at wooing. His arsenal must include quivers full of sweet compliments.
Even as she chastised herself for believing he meant what he said, her eyes searched his dark face. His gaze was steady and glowed with unconstrained admiration.
His attention dropped to her breasts, and interest sparked in the green eyes. She blushed again and hitched the sheet up, even though she knew her behavior was ridiculous. He’d already seen all of her. Touched all of her.
Ashcroft laughed at her continued silence. “Now I really have shocked you.”
“No.” She blinked, trying to understand this new world, where women like Diana Carrick were called goddesses. A world where superb examples of masculinity like Tarquin Vale considered her irresistible. “Yes.”
He distracted her with his flattery. She clutched the sheet tighter and almost wailed her frustration. A frustration not only with him but with herself and her wayward responses. And the fact that she couldn’t stanch the pricks of a guilty conscience, no matter how she struggled to ignore them. “Surely it can’t be enjoyable to pull out at the…ultimate moment.”
The fugitive lightness faded. “I won’t inflict my bastards upon the world.”
She extended a hand toward him palm upward. Because beneath the denial, she read a longing that made her heart cramp. He burned to spill his seed inside her. She should have seen that from the first time, when he’d withdrawn with almost painful violence.
Her task was clear, distasteful as it was. She must break down his will.
Which, against all expectations, was prodigious.
Lord Burnley, the world, the respectable Mrs. Carrick from Marsham, all had underestimated this man.
She cringed at how she twisted her words to mislead. “I promise on my soul there will be no unwanted children because of what happens between us, Ashcroft.”
He took her hand, moving closer to the bed. Her other hand automatically rested on his hip. Had she won the battle? She didn’t know, and she couldn’t ask. If she pushed the issue further, he’d become suspicious.
What if he never gave in? Where did that leave her?
“What’s this?” she asked absently, stroking the small dark patch she’d noticed earlier. Up close the mark formed a familiar shape. She traced it with her fingers.
He looked down and shrugged. “A birthmark.”